It was once hailed by do-gooders and pragmatists alike as a showcase of sensible north-south co-operation. No longer. The Lome convention, a trade-and-aid pact between Europe and a group of poor countries, is out of fashion. On February 16th ministers of the 15 EU states and the 70 Lome countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) gather for their five-yearly meeting to argue about money. Only days before the meeting, the Europeans were split over how much to offer.
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